Raman spectra of long chain hydrocarbons: anharmonic calculations, experiment and implications for imaging of biomembranes

First-principles anharmonic vibrational calculations are carried out for the Raman spectrum of the C-H stretching bands in dodecane, and for the C-D bands in the deuterated molecule. The calculations use the Vibrational Self-Consistent Field (VSCF) algorithm. The results are compared with liquid-state experiments, after smoothing the isolated-molecule sharp-line computed spectra. Very good agreement between the computed and experimental results is found for the two systems. The combined theoretical and experimental results provide insights into the spectrum, elucidating the roles of symmetric and asymmetric CH3 and CH2 hydrogenic stretches. This is expected to be very useful for the interpretation of spectra of long-chain hydrocarbons. The results show that anharmonic effects on the spectrum are large. On the other hand, vibrational degeneracy effects seem to be rather modest at the resolution of the experiments. The degeneracy effects may have more pronounced manifestations in higher-resolution experiments. The results show that first-principles anharmonic vibrational calculations for hydrocarbons are feasible, in good agreement with experiment, opening the way for applications to many similar systems. The results may be useful for the analysis of CARS imaging of lipids, for which dodecane is a representative molecule. It is suggested that first-principles vibrational calculations may be useful also for CARS imaging of other systems.